The ‘I’ inside

Having missed its cinematic run and ignoring it on the shelf for many months, I finally bought “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” by Julian Schnabel and, at a whim on a rare quiet day, sat down and watched it. The term tour de force is often over used, and is very applicable here, not to Mathieu Almaric’s performance as Jean-Dominique Bauby (as good as it is), but to Schnabel’s courageous directing and the superlative camerawork by Janusz Kaminski. I will see this film many more times in the future.

“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is based on the book by Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a stroke at the height of his career as editor of “Elle” in France and ended up able to move only his one eye. With that one eye, he managed to write the book which details his experience as someone suffering from “locked-in syndrome”. His mind remains sharp, his thoughts clear, tragically trapped in a cage of redundant flesh. In a daring move, Schnabel forces us to see the world as Bauby does as the film begins. For some time, we struggle to focus; see only fragments of an object; we tear up; light blazes into our vision. Then, as Bauby narrates from within his mind, we get to know him as well as his family, mistress, father, and the medical professionals who help him.

Anyone who’s familiar with Bauby’s story knows how this will end; however, the film evokes expectant hope, not blunt sympathy. Schnabel and Kaminski open up Bauby’s mental world via flashbacks and flights of the imagination, often powerfully contrasting those strong images with his crumpled, ineffective body. Furthermore, Schnabel’s choice of music – often so annoying and distracting in a film – is as perfect as his choice of image. The film is a testament to the power of the medium.

Emmanuelle Seigner plays the wife who plays second fiddle to the mistress, and has a wrenching scene in this regard. Max von Sydow, now at very advanced age, gives a performance of astonishing sensitivity in two scenes with his son. The emotional potency of those scenes is elevated as one depicts Bauby in top shape, while in the second he’s near motionless and wheelchair bound. It’s remarkable how well Almaric and Sydow engage in this second scene, even considering that it was edited together during postproduction.